And What Will Ye Leave to Your Own Sister Dear, Sweet Brother?
by Wardown
Summary: Sansa discovers that being Queen in the North is no bed of roses. This story does not show Sansa in an attractive light.


**And What Will Ye Leave to Your Own Sister Dear, Sweet Brother?**

She watches intently as punishment is exacted on the luckless villagers.

"You are merciful, your Grace" comments Maester Wolkan. _Merciful_. The adult males of the village have, naturally, been executed. The women and children stand in a huddle, downcast, as their homes and possessions are burnt by her men. The livestock have already been rounded up. "Your grandfather, Lord Hoster Tully; he would have executed every inhabitant." He would, but she might just as well have done. The women and children will starve, as winter strengthens its grip on the land. It is not her fault they must die. She never forced their liege, Lord Ryswell, to rebel. But, he did, and so his people must pay the price. As the people of every rebel lord across the North have paid. _The Harrying of the North_ the chroniclers are already calling her military campaigns; the burnt out villages, desolate castles, and blackened fields are all testimony to her efforts.

She turns her horse, and rides away, surrounded by her Queensguard, closing her ears to the muttered curses of the villagers. Let them hate me, so long as they fear me. She remembers her rival saying something like that, long ago. How she despised her for it. She would rule by love, not fear. How could she have been so naive? She who had lived with Cersei, Joffrey and Ramsay Bolton. Not much shames her now, but one remark by Lord Royce of the Vale was reported back , cutting her to the quick. "_Whatever her faults, the Dragon Queen saved the North. The Wolf Queen burns it_." She doesn't like to imagine what her parents would think of her, could they see her. It had been so easy to persuade herself that betraying the ally that her brother loved would be in the interests of the North; that her people yearned for their independence under a Stark Queen. Her brother had his own views about that, the last time she visited Castle Black.

"Do you think it makes the slightest difference to a crofter or fisherman, whether you are called Queen in the North, or Lady of Winterfell? A tyrant is still a tyrant." _A tyrant._

"I did what I had to do, Jon, you know that."

"Ah, what you had to do. The age old excuse of evil, trying to justify itself. We can be honest together, Sansa, you wanted a crown. And, you broke an oath in order to destroy your rival, and you got your crown. Enjoy."

"You were the one who killed her, not me" she snapped.

"I was the one who killed her. I'm the one who is cursed by gods and men for it. But, let's not pretend I didn't do exactly what you wanted me to do. You worked to bring her down, from the moment she set foot in the North. What was it you told Lord Tyrion, while she was fighting to save your life? "You would have divided loyalties." Out of your own mouth, you made clear that any man who married you would have to choose between his loyalty to the woman I loved, and his loyalty to you. _"A foreign whore who doesn't know her place!"_

"I never called her that!"

"No, Cersei called her that. You know what Cersei's greatest achievement was? Killing anything that was good in you, and making you into her replica. You placed the pair of us in a position where each one was a threat to the other. You knew exactly what you were doing. If I struck her down, you would get your crown. If she struck me down, well, I'd be a martyr, and you could rally the country against her. And, once I killed her? I could just be sent into exile. Well played." He raised his mug of ale, in ironic salute.

"She burned a city, Jon".

"And, you're burning a nation."

Furious, she had risen, and turned to walk away, only to hear him singing a verse from an old ballad of the North:

_"And what will ye leave to your own sister dear, Sweet brother? And what will ye leave to your own sister dear? Sweet brother, now tell me, O.' _

_'The curse of hell from me shall you bear, Sweet Sister: The curse of hell from me shall you bear, Such counsels you gave to me"._ She heard him sob, but did not look back.

Jon hated her, she knew. Almost as much as he hated himself. They would never meet again.

Maester Wolkan spurs his horse forward, to draw level. "Your Grace, we must discuss the food supply."

"It's faltering, I suppose."

"The crops dwindle, and the game runs scarce. The South is in such chaos, that we can expect little aid from the Small Council. Dorne, the Iron Islands, and now the Stormlands, are bidding for independence. The assassination of Lord Tyrion leaves a vacuum at the heart of the government."

"The army must take priority". _Enrich the soldiers and damn the rest_

"The old, the sick, the weak, they will be driven out to die."

"As they always have been, in times of famine. The Kings of Winter did not come to rule the North by spreading sweetness and light. Once the rebels have been put down, then, I can worry about feeding the Smallfolk"

"It shall be Ma'am, as you command. " Wolkan bows in the saddle, and rides off to give the necessary orders.

**Notes:**

1\. Jon's song is a variation of the old Borders ballad "Edward, Edward" about a nobleman who is going into exile, after his mother tricked him into murdering his father.

2\. "Enrich the soldiers and damn everyone else" is supposedly the advice that Septimius Severus gave his sons on his deathbed.

3\. The Harrying of the North was a scorched earth strategy employed by William the Conqueror, in Yorkshire and Durham. It was so brutal that 15 years later, Domesday Book described most land in Yorkshire as "waste."


End file.
